DON DELILLO - LIBRA

Image: Oswald

I found this book on the bookshelf of a home where I was dog- and cat-sitting. I’d read other Delillo novels before. I hadn’t read this one because the Kennedy assassination had never much interested me — it seemed monolithic in its complexity, I struggled to find an entry point, and wondered whether it was worth my time to nerd out about the whole thing. This novel impressed me on a level of craft and ambition. I didn’t fall under a spell (as I have under other of Delillo’s novels). The characterization of Jack Ruby, which may have seemed extraneous and even caricatureish to some readers, resonated most with me. Ruby’s character is rendered in a more traditionally sympathetic way than the rest of the assembled conspirators. His trips to Dallas delis and his deadbeat roommate made him real to me. Read, March 2020.